I got filtered by the first sentence. Am I suppose to know what a whilome is? Is it worth deciphering 1000 pages of this?It begins:>Lo I the man, whose whilome did maske,>As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,>Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske,>For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,>And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;>Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long,>Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds>To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:>Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song.
>>25029206It's a small effort to learn the vocabulary of an author in your own language and an essential process for the erudite.
>>25029206Please give up now.
>>25029206I have no idea what any of that means
>>25029206>pseuds really pretend to enjoy deciphering this slop
>>25029270Man is forced to abandon comfy rustic life to sing about the deeds of knights and ladies for the learned.>>25029289If J.K. Rowling did (as implied by her novel about the psycho nurse).Are you more retarded than a woman?
>>25029245>>25029253The word whilome reappears only 30 timesThe word vnfitter never reappearsTotal word count is aprox 45,000Standard glossary of early modern English wont cover everything, as much of his word choice was considered archaic, even by 16th century standards. How did you guys approach it?
>>25029331>The word vnfitter never reappearsYou know that's just "unfitter"...
by the second page i was fully in the swing of it as far as the language is concerned. the juice is definetly worth the squeeze on this one. deciphering is far too strong a word. get a good annotated copy (not the penguin edition) because while the language quickly becomes intuitive, you will eventually hit a reference to mythology or history that filters you.>>25029331look very hard at the word "vnfitter". does it remind you of any other word, perhaps one that would "fit" in it's place? say "emongst" out loud, what word did you say?
>what's wrong with the penguinhere. as you can see, there is no indication within the text as to what gets an endnote. i read the book this way, so it can be done, but it is frustrating.
>what should i get instead?here's a picture of the routledge edition. much better, but much more expensive.
>>25029354thanks anoncould you still enjoy the lyrical pacing despite having to frequently refer to end notes?
>>25029372yes. i didn't need all the notes, not even half, but i always think it's better to have too many than too few with notes. you just start from the beginning of the line after you read the note.
>>25029206I don't know about other anons, maybe I'm just lazy and comparatively dumb, but you don't have to understand every single word, phrase, or meaning all the time, y'know?
>>25029245The author specifically used vocabulary that was archaic or even obsolete in his own time. Reading late Medieval English literature is a good way to learn it as well as a good way to see what's doing.
>>25029206>>25029245>>25029289>>25029344>>25029348>>25029354>>25029500If you find the faerie queene hard or difficult to read then you don't deserve to read english literature. This includes having an annotated copy. If you need an annotated copy to understand the faerie queene then you are a subhuman. You should have enough experience reading old literature, ballads, medieval texts, etc, to understand the faerie queene without annotations. Practically every great poet prior to the 1900s did
>>25029206get gpt to translate it for you into retard
>>25030158insecure post. "you should have enough experience" form what? were you born an experienced reader? there is no need for you to posture so on this anonymous singaporian fresco discussion website. it is not impressive.
>>25030158OK now everyone on the planet is subhuman except for you. What is the next step of your master plan?
>>25030168>insecure post.ESL post>you should have enough experience" form what? were you born an experienced reader? From reading older literature since childhood>>25030172Stop copingIf penniless orphans in the 18th century managed to read and understand the faerie queene then you should too
>>25030174the recommendation that i read the routledge edition came to me from a professor emeritus who is a family friend of mine. he and his wife, also a doctor of english, consider it the best way to read the book.
>>25030174I bet you spend your day being miserable at "suffering fools" You sound like a shut in who loses his mind at minor inconveniences and brow beats people for not learning esoteric history subjects that mean fucking nothing to anybody.
>>25030174would you care to respind to this reply you recieved the last time you pulled this shit? from thread >>24700939, as you will recall.
>>25030182Professor of gooning at Incel U here. Your professor is an idiot.
>>25030182>>25030188>>25030194ESLs detectedOpinion rejectedIf you find spenser difficult you are an ESL midwit
>>25030198hey, how come you didn't capitalize the name. names are proper nouns. are you an esl?you are not convincing anyone, even yourself, of your superiority. if you said this in the most elite classroom in the world, they'd scoff at you. this reeks of someone trying to pretend to themself that they don't have shortcomings. you sound like elliot rodger when he compares himself to his peers. you cannot possibly have a single friend if you consider anyone who needs help reading the faerie queene subhuman. i'm sure a nobel prize winning physicist would need help reading the faerie queene.
>>25030215why would i need to capitalize shit on /lit/? i'm not writing a dissertation herewordsworth managed to read the faerie queene without help. everybody did prior to the 1900s. it's really not that difficult
>>25029206>see a word you don't know>take five seconds to google itis it really so difficult
>>25030225you felt the need to use capitalization in every post prior to this last one, where you abruptly dropped it, because you are insecure and want to protect your image on this anonymous website for the discussion of cambodian shadow puppetry.
>>25030174>penniless orphans in the 18th century managed to read and understand the faerie queeneDid they, with 30% literacy? if they didn't, are they subhumans too? If they didn't and then could when trying again, did they retract their subhumanity?>>25030225>wordsworth managed to read the faerie queene without help. everybody did prior to the 1900s. Really? Your contention is no one ever asked anyone for help reading a passage of anything prior to 1900? >it's really not that difficultSo it has some degree of difficulty; can subhumans interpret be expected to do anything that you admit has difficulty? What do you call those who cannot? Subsubhumans?
>>25030225you should adopt a tripcode, since you're so cool.
>>25030174>If penniless orphans in the 18th century managed to read and understand the faerie queene then you should tooif you were remotely familiar with this book you would know how retarded that sounds. 18th century author samuel johnson described spensers writing as "a useful source for obsolete and archaic words".
>>25029348That's a pretty shit setup. You definitely need notes for something like this, unless you've already studied similar stuff. If I had that edition I'd be flipping back after every line, just to check.
>>25030235>armchair psychonanalysis>>25030242literary levels in 18th and 19th century england were over 50%>Really? Your contention is no one ever asked anyone for help reading a passage of anything prior to 1900?My contention is that you shouldn't need annotations for the faerie queene if you have any degree of familiary with english literature
>>25030258But yeah, if you have notes and aren't retarded, it's doable. You aren't retarded, are you, OP?
>>25029331>The word vnfitter never reappearsIt's unfitter... do you not even know that u and v are used interchangeably in older manuscripts? Because Latin did not have a letter 'u', they used 'v' in its place. Before English script was standardized spellings and usage of letters were essentially up to the writer.
>>25029206in the intro and first 15 stanzas of the first book these are the only words that I found unclear>whilome>Heben>ydrad (from context, happy? brave?)>Lemans (layman's?)>arreeverything else is just archaic spelling which is very easy to handle, and the occasional rare word like "eke" or "wot" which is also easy to learn.If you read a sentence like "Least suddaine mischiefe ye too rash prouoke" and it takes you more than a couple seconds to figure out that it means "Lest sudden mischief you too rashly provoke" then I'd recommend going back to Harry Potter.
>>25030269>improper grammar to force the meter to fitNot gonna read this slop
>>25030158>>25030259>nooo you cant learn while you read!!! you should already know everything before you start reading!!!!
>>25030158Nice bait. But to take your troll post seriously for a moment, literary education was far more comprehensive back then. If you were educated, you would've studied the classics from a young age with teachers who knew all that stuff. Nowadays, you're lucky to read The Great Gatsby with a teacher who explains that the green light is a metaphor for unfulfilled desire. More likely, a student has to read the Racism Is Bad book with a teacher who explains that it means racism is bad.
>>25030269can you translate this line from the 1st stanza without a glossary?>Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
>>25030273There was no such thing as "proper grammar" for English back then, the closest you got was people trying to graft Latin grammar rules onto English because Latin was considered to be the perfect language. Even well into the 20th century you still had lots of nonsensical "rules" for English grammar which were just people trying to force it to be like Latin, like "no split infinitives!" which is a rule in Latin, but English can split infinitives just fine.
>>25030259At the beginning they were around 30% and by the end, 60%, with no indication that would apply to your penniless orphans. And I do not believe the 19th century was in the 18th century. Sorry, just confused by your argument because at the start you said quite strongly that everyone who did not immediately comprehend everything in the Faerie Queene was subhuman, now you are merely saying that any studious reader "shouldn't need annotations," but I wonder what should happen to them if they do.By the way, your penniless orphans in the 1700s, should they have the wherewithal to acquire a copy of the book, would likely have gotten this copy by John Upton, published in 1758. Now I am confused; are they subhumans for reading this copy where Upton provides a glossary for the meanings of old words and references he makes and provides a context on the life of Spenser-- for shouldn't they have already known these words and allusions because they have some degree of familiarity with the English language? Or are you saying that John Upton himself was a third-world ESL subhuman for feeling that some of the things Spenser said were difficult at all?
>>25030313the glossary was for the most obscure of the obscure words, it wasn't for words which are common and anybody with an understanding of the english language should be able to understand, retard.
>>25030333So are you saying you ARE allowed to use an annotated copy? And why, then, did Upton describe the life and culture of Spenser in a long essay at the beginning? Were the kids who learned from that "retards" as well? I am confused how this does not refute your entire argument.
>>25030269>whilomepreviously>hebenebony>ydrad"drad" means "dreaded" and the "y-" (you will see this a lot) means that it is in the perfect passive participle, that is, that it was done in the past, and by someone other that himself. i'm told "handiwork" comes from this; "is this your handiwork" means "is this thing that was worked on in the past, not by itself, but by your hand".>lemanlover, typically. this is a bit confusing, as earth is jove's mother, but, y'know, greeks. >arrejust "are">>25030306i confess, when i read this i interpreted "areeds" incorrectly. i thought it meant to dress someone, and that he was saying the muse had placed the poet's laurals on his head. it means instruct, though. my interpretation was fairly close.
>>25030355oh, for clarity, i took the imagined laurels as being advance payment for writing the poem.
>>25030158>>25030333>anybody with an understanding of the english language should be able to understandhow much of the english language do you understand? I know youre fluent in early modern, but dont tell me youre one of those ESL retards who cant read middle and old english, are you? if you need annotations for beowulf you should stick to video games
>>25029206Why does the language seem so much more archaic than Shakespeare despite being contemporary?
>>25030158I don't find it difficult but it does require knowing Middle English since it regularly uses Middle English
>>25030456off of vibe checks, he wanted to sound more archaic, quite normal for the epic genre
>>25030452it was intentionally written to sound more archaic
>>25029206if the retards in my renaissance epics class can figure it out i'm sure you can too bud
>>25029206Spenser be naught but a poor man's Chatterton, meseemeth
>>25030452Spenser wrote literature, Shakespeare wrote a series of quotations
>>25029206Will I like this if I like fairies but am critical of Anglicanism
>>25034008there are zero fairies in the faerie queene. not in the sense that you're thinking. faerie is more like elf and for the most part you can forget that they're not humans.
>>25034144Fairies and elves are literally the same thing you retard
>>25034172you damn well most people associate the word "fairy" with pocket-sized, winged humanoids, whereas an elf makes people think of legolas. don't be obtuse.
>>25033987Shakey didn't write jack shit, he was a magpie who clothed his nest with others' work
>>25030158trvke.Here’s Ezra Pound on the topic:> Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of great books forever.
>>25029328>Man is forced to abandon comfy rustic life to sing about the deeds of knights and ladies for the learned.i'm esl and i figured that out
>>25030265>>25029344>>25029342
>>25034794Lel that nigga was too lazy to learn several languages and instead simply pretended to know them
>>25029206There are literally endless amounts of good books out there, I would choose one of them instead of suffering through this just so that you can maybe slightly impress internet weirdos at some point. >>25029289>slopNot that you are exactly wrong but using low effort internet buzzwords, incorrectly, kind of weakens your point
>>25029206It’s a tough read but it’s good. You’ll pick up on more of it as you go along and there are follow along vocabulary guides online. I’m sure there’s also some annotated editions out there aswell
>>25035327not trying to call you out, im genuinely curious: have you actually read this book?
>>25029206It takes less time than you might expect to adjust. I found it to be rewarding so I hope you stick with it.
>>25037611No I haven't
>>25038791filtered
>>25029289>>25029206Try something written in ebonics, niggers
>>25038942That's not how it works, you aren't filtered by something you haven't readFuck's sake. This is like you calling it "slop" up above
>>25038982that wasn't me, and you were filtered because you were too daunted to even begin.
>>25039124Again, words mean things.
>>25039465how can you define (the /lit/ vernacular meaning of the word) "filtered" in a way that doesn't describe you? you are not equal to the task of reading this book.
>>25029206Listen to an audio book version, the words are easier to recognise when they are pronounced.
>>25030168To be fair, if you’ve never read Early Modern English, Spenser is probably not a good place to start
>>25034207Totally. The guy was an upstart crow
>>25039731Filtered means you tried and failed to understand something. It doesn't mean "you never even read something."You know, like how a fucking filter prevents things from passing through? The person who tries to read something and fails is getting caught in the filter? Whereas the person who never even tries to get through the filter, is not?
>>25040335you were prevented from passing through the book. it just took very little to prevent you. it isn't simply that you haven't gotten around to it, or that it wasn't to your taste, you know that you are incapable of understanding it. you are filtered and coping.
>>25030305I (zoomer) wasn't taught any important literature in my whole schooling career. We read insane slop like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The best was Golding. Nothing before the 20th century.
>>25042724The production and enjoyment of serious writing is returning to the domain of the upper class, where it was in most times and places. Reversion to the mean
